BY
JIM NORMAN
As
the township of Teaneck commemorated the 50th anniversary of peaceful
desegregation of its public schools, the mayor took another page from the civil
rights era by calling for the creation of a civilian complaint review board.
His
call for a review board dealt with the hottest issue to hit Teaneck in years:
the arrest of 63 students who were carrying out what they called a “senior
prank” against the high school.
Although
the police laid out a description of ransacking that went beyond the definition
of prank, the community and school administrators countered that no damage had
been done. And students said they had been mistreated by the police officers
who took them into custody.
On
Monday night, the day before municipal elections, Mayor Mohammed Hameeduddin
promised an angry crowd of about 50 residents, high school students, parents
and teachers that he would introduce a measure at the next municipal council
meeting to reinstitute a civilian complaint review board.
Hameeduddin,
who is not up for re-election this year, made the promise after listening to
descriptions of the early morning prank that left halls in the high school
filled with balloons and Silly String, some door knobs smeared with Vaseline
and desks and tables overturned.
Requests
to create a government-sanctioned body in Teaneck to monitor police are not
new.
After
a white police officer fatally shot a black teenager in 1990 – and set off
months of racial turmoil that included marches through town led by the Rev. Al
Sharpton – Teaneck established a civilian complaint review board to review
police activity. The board was established amid widespread concerns that police
singled out young black men for harassment.
But
after several years of meetings, the board never brought any complaints to the
township council for review. The Bergen County prosecutor, as well as the state
Attorney General’s office, also reviewed policies and procedures by the Teaneck
police and ruled that there was no explicit evidence of harassment of
African-Americans.
The
Teaneck police, however, embarked on a reform movement that included increased
focus on community policing and recruitment of more minority officers.
That
review board, called the Teaneck Community Policing Bureau, was disbanded in
2010 as a result of budget cuts. Hameeduddin said it had been discontinued for
lack of interest, with no volunteers to fill its positions.
Controversy
often accompanies civilian complaint review boards, which came into use in the
1960s. Supporters say that police agencies cannot be objective when they
investigate allegations of misconduct against their officers, Dean J. Champion
writes in his book "Police Misconduct in America: A Reference
Handbook" (ABC-CLIO, 2001). They also say that independent citizen boards
can clear officers of charges of misconduct. But, Champion adds, opponents of
the boards say that civilians cannot appreciate the high level of risk
associated with police work, do not understand the necessity of using force to
subdue suspects and are biased against police officers who are accused of
misconduct.
Many
people in the crowd Monday night angrily charged that the police had
overreacted to what has become a tradition in recent years, of seniors going
into the high school and making their mark with good-natured mischief.
Acting
Police Chief Robert Carney held a press conference the morning after the
arrests, claiming that students had destroyed furniture and defecated and
urinated in the hallways, a charge angrily denied by students, their parents
and several teachers in the audience.
Schools
Superintendent Barbara Pinsak also denied that any urination or defecation had
taken place and said there was no damage – just a mess that took two hours to
clean up.
Twenty-four
of those arrested had passed their 18th birthdays and were charged as adults
with burglary and vandalism.
Hameeduddin
said he had asked three times to see the actual police report, which is cited
in the criminal complaints as the basis for the charges, but had been denied
each time. “I’ve been told that it’s an ongoing investigation and it’s
classified and I can’t see the police report,” the mayor said.
Hameeduddin
also said he was waiting to see security camera video recordings to see if they
supported the police version of events.
Some
students said they had been thrown to the ground by police from Teaneck and as
many as 15 different surrounding communities, called to the scene by Teaneck
police officials who said they feared the situation was getting out of control.
Handcuffed
and held in cells at police headquarters, the students said they were wet,
cold, hungry and afraid, and not allowed to call their parents for several
hours. One student, 18-year-old Dejanee Archbold, who was charged as an adult,
said a detective “came in with coffee and a bagel and called us a bunch of
dumbasses.”
Another
student, Maya Stripling, also 18, said police at no point advised students of
their rights, a requirement when a suspect is arrested on a criminal charge.
Hameeduddin
asked for patience while the charges are allowed to go through Bergen County
Prosecutor John Molinelli’s office. “My main concern right now is getting them
out of the county prosecutor’s office and move it back to municipal court,” he
said.
“We
all know about procedure,” shouted Isaac Combs, who said he was a parent. “But
what about rights?”
Another
parent, Claudia Montoya, who said her child was a high school student but not a
senior and not involved in the prank, suggested that the group form a committee
to file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice.
“We’re
talking about civil rights here,” another parent shouted as the meeting heated
up. “This is why I can’t support a celebration of 50 years of integration in
Teaneck. We still have the problem.”
Patricia
Butler, a parent whose daughter graduated in 2012, was the organizer of the
meeting. She said she was “outraged that these kids were traumatized this way,
and the next day they were told not to talk about it.”
Patricia
Butler, a parent whose daughter graduated in 2012, was the organizer of the
meeting. She said she was “outraged that these kids were traumatized this way,
and the next day they were told not to talk about it.”
“All
our kids were traumatized by this,” she said. “How dare you violate me and tell
me I can’t talk about it?”
Across
town, at the high school were people were celebrating the 50th anniversary of
voluntary integration in Teaneck, Barbara Toffler, a former councilwoman and
frequent critic of the mayor and the majority on the council, said she thought
a civilian complaint review board was not a good idea.
“I
think that what we have here is two very angry groups – the students, whose
programs have been cut, and the police, who have lost officers and equipment to
budget cuts,” Toffler said. “And I think that the police calling outside
departments in to help was a way of making the point that they are being
shortchanged.”
Olivia
Betances, a teacher and dean of students at the high school, said she had
arrived at the school at 4:30 a.m., and found only balloons, toilet paper
streamers and a brownish substance “that looked like hair grease on one tiny
area of a locker that police were taking pictures of.”
By
6 a.m., she said, “the entire building was spotless and the school was ready to
be opened.”
“My
living room was probably dirtier than that building at 6 a.m.,” she said.
Betances added that the 2012 prank had taken “way more time to clean up,” and
said that when she was a high school student in the Bronx “our senior prank was
90 times worse than this.”
Mike
Kelly and Carla Baranauckas contributed to this report.